The Juni­or Sci­ence Café AI will enter the next round at the begin­ning of the 2024/25 school year: We are look­ing for pro­ject schools, com­mit­ted stu­dents and teach­ers who would like to organ­ize cafés at their school on the top­ic of arti­fi­cial intelligence.

Have you ever heard of the Junior Science Café AI before?

It is a dia­logue format that enables pupils to par­ti­cip­ate in a dir­ect exchange with sci­ent­ists. The pro­ject can be imple­men­ted in sec­ond­ary schools through­out Ger­many. It is organ­ized by Wis­senschaft im Dia­log (Sci­ence in Dia­logue), togeth­er with us from the RHET AI Cen­ter. The pro­ject is fun­ded by the Volk­swa­gen­Stif­tung.

But what exactly is the Juni­or Sci­ence Café AI?

In this pro­ject, stu­dents from grade 8 onwards are encour­aged to organ­ize café events on the top­ic of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence at their school. Sci­ent­ists are invited to the café events, with whom the par­ti­cipants can enter into dia­log in a relaxed atmo­sphere and learn more about their research and sci­ence in general.

Goals and Structure of the project

The pro­ject Juni­or Sci­ence Café AI focuses in par­tic­u­lar on the stu­dents' own ini­ti­at­ive to plan, mod­er­ate and carry out the event as part of a work­ing group, a man­dat­ory course, or a pro­ject week. Indi­vidu­al teams take care of vari­ous aspects of the café regard­ing organ­iz­a­tion, advert­ising, con­tent pre­par­a­tion and for­mu­lat­ing a guid­ing ques­tion for the café, select­ing guests, or mod­er­at­ing the event. The pro­ject offers stu­dents the oppor­tun­ity to get to know their own strengths, prac­tise tak­ing on respons­ib­il­ity and put togeth­er an excit­ing event as a team. In addi­tion, the stu­dents have the oppor­tun­ity to talk to sci­ent­ists and learn more about cur­rent research on the top­ic of arti­fi­cial intelligence.

The whole pro­ject takes place by sup­port of a teach­er, who in turn is accom­pan­ied and sup­por­ted by the pro­ject office. The offer is free of charge and a sub­sidy for the event can be applied for.

Would you like to organ­ize a Juni­or Sci­ence Café AI? Then please con­tact us at kontakt@juniorsciencecafe.de. The pro­ject office will be happy to advise and sup­port you and reg­u­larly offers online inform­a­tion events for super­vising teach­ers. Fur­ther inform­a­tion can also be found on the Wis­senschaft im Dia­log web­site. There you can also find mater­i­als for regis­tra­tion and imple­ment­a­tion of a café event, as well as a hand­book, that guides the pupils step by step through the plan­ning and imple­ment­a­tion of their own café event.

Dis­claim­er: the pro­ject and pro­ject imple­ment­a­tion are inten­ded for Ger­man speak­ing events and audiences.